Linda Piper's article on Bexley Primary School Results gives rise to a number of questions.

One of these is, how come scores of 100,100 and 97 are deemed poorer than scores of 100,100 and 88?

Perhaps the answer lies in the Special Needs column but then a glance at this also reveals some very peculiar situations. Here are but a few;

i) A Bexleyheath School, with four out of five pupils designated as special needs, still manages to get all its pupils above the national average in all 3 subjects.

ii) A Sidcup School does likewise but in this case only a third of its pupils are special needs.

iii) A Thamesmead School, with half of its pupils special needs, scores higher grades than a Welling School with only one in five pupils reckoned as special needs.

Surely these examples raise the question as to whether the headteachers are working to the same criteria for special needs status. If they are, is it their individual interpretations of these which gives rise to such discrepancies?

D Peck

Heversham Road

Bexleyheath

December 21, 2001 16:00